


Ain't That a Shotgun Blast to the Chest

by TerribleAndSadThings



Series: Godsend [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Mo' problems, Platonic Arcade/Courier, Platonic Relationships, mojave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 10:03:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12408288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerribleAndSadThings/pseuds/TerribleAndSadThings
Summary: Despite the months between the time they parted and now, the Courier drew Arcade back to where he had been before. As if he never left, Arcade fell right back into step, patching him up and bickering along the way.(Can be read independently from the first two parts in the series)





	Ain't That a Shotgun Blast to the Chest

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. long time no post. got a few other scraps and will get back to the whole the Courier not understanding what a Mormon is in his quest to woo Joshua 2. Platonic Arcade/Courier is my lifeblood 3. I realize the recovery rate of the Courier is unrealistic, but it's flippin' New Vegas. The Courier is unrealistic. 4. Vulpes continues to live out of pure burning hatred. I do not feel bad for anything done to him. He is awful and should suffer. 5. "Sarah" is merely an unnamed Followers Doctor npc. There are a number small points that vary from game canon, but nothing significant.

Yesterday at approximately 5:31 AM Arcade left Freeside with a supply caravan consisting of him, another doctor of the Followers, and three heavily armed mercenaries. Before his little adventures with the Courier, Julie never would have asked him to accompany anyone anywhere, but times were dire and The Followers were spread thin. Arcade now as well versed in the Mojave as almost anyone meant Arcade went.

It had been a long day, or felt long. During their trek to the Followers’ outpost, Arcade found himself checking over his shoulder twice as much as he had when traveling with the Courier. It shouldn’t have made sense, that one overconfident idiot caused Arcade to feel more secure than three battle hardened mercenaries. Yet, here Arcade was, painfully aware if they got into a skirmish it would be a fight for their lives instead of a gleeful demolition of their enemies.

When they finally arrived, Arcade and Sarah went inside while the mercenaries argued who would be first shift to stand guard outside. Although their pace had been mild and their journey uneventful, no one wanted to stand out in the Mojave for three hours with nothing to do.

Without more than a few words to explain himself, closer to a half trailed off sentence, Arcade dragged himself into the side room and dropped into the bed, ignoring suspicious stains. One last sigh and Arcade fell into a dead sleep.

-

Arcade jolted awake to the sound of violence. When he had travelled with the Courier it hadn't been an unusual sound to wake to, but he wasn't travelling with the Courier.

When Arcade realized exactly what was happening, he shot upright from the bed only for a hand to cover his mouth and a painfully strong grip on his shoulder holding him in place. A chest pressed against his back and a chin rested in his other shoulder. The voice in his ear, too familiar, too cheerful, caused a cold drop of dread to roll down his spine and then annoyance that the Courier felt it okay to climb in bed with Arcade.

“Hey, Arcade, it's me.”

Rationally, Arcade knew his reaction to the Courier was extreme, the Courier never having hurt him or threatened him with any intent behind it, but that didn't really change the fact that the Courier was a crazy person. At some point Arcade had lost track of the cold blooded murders the Courier committed.

“I'm pretty sure those guys out there want you dead,” he said, tone contemplative.

Arcade didn't attempt to respond, the Couriers hand gripping his jaw tight.

The Couriers leaned heavier on Arcade’s back, letting Arcade take his weight, and touched his head to Arcade's. “Want me to kill them for you?”

The question could have been mocking from another, even likely, considering the less than pleasant terms they parted on. From the Courier it was genuine. It wasn’t an offer, a favor, or a gift. The Courier was asking permission. It was one of the reasons Arcade originally agreed to accompany the Courier, thinking he could direct the Courier, prevent unnecessary death. It was an even greater reason as to why he left. Eventually the responsibility weighed Arcade down. When the Courier would lift his head from the person, an actual human, he just brutally beat inches from death and look to Arcade, doe eyes asking.

The question would hang in the air between them, the Courier’s eyes locked on his face waiting for permission. Can I kill them? A legionnaire, a ranger, a Fiend, any one of the tens of unfortunate people set on ending the Courier, did Arcade give the Courier permission to murder someone no longer a threat? What were the other choices? Leave them on the torn up asphalt of Route 188, failing body to be buried by sandstorm beside their slaughtered comrades?

“One of your friends is still breathing. Can't you hear her?”

Arcade couldn't hear much beyond the Courier’s voice and the pound of blood in his ear, adrenaline pumping through him, the chatter of the Fiends as they looted the bodies of Arcade’s companions so distant.

Arcade swallowed. The Courier’s hand fell away.

“Save her,” Arcade whispered, as if saving if her would be possible without killing all four of the Fiends, as if by saying “save” instead of “kill” would absolve Arcade of his part in it.

The Courier moved before his words even faded. Silent and nearly imperceptible in the darkness, he crept, _stalked_ towards the doorway. Drawing his gun, Courier glanced back and smiled at Arcade, shadows cast by the lamplight a room away flickering over his face. Then he fired. One shot rung, glass shattered, and the light vanished, followed by flashing gunfire and shouting from the fiends.

Arcade scrambled to grab his glasses and his gun, shoving the glasses on his face and checking the status of his ammo. Not that he would be of much help in the dark or in close quarters. Not that the Courier really needed help in a fight at all. It was mostly after when Arcade came in handy.

The explosion rocked the shack with such force Arcade stumbled. He struggled to find his balance, ears ringing and debris from the decrepit roof raining over him. A scream of rage cut through the air, followed by a double tap, and then the thud of a body hitting the floor.

Arcade did his best to move through the dark, picking up his pace at the hiss of pain from the Courier. Arcade ran his hand along the wall until he reached the doorway and stepped through. The light from the Couriers Pip-Boy flicked on, filling the small front room with an electric green glow.

It was a mess. Even after everything Arcade had been through, everything he had witnessed, the blown apart bodies of six people in a single room turned his stomach. He should be grateful he could not see more, the Pip-boy light only so bright, but he couldn't see past Sarah's half collapsed torso at his feet.

Across the room the Courier cursed. Arcade tore his eyes away from the dead to look at the living. Splattered in blood and guts, Arcade couldn't tell the extent of the Couriers injuries but the fact he hadn't bounded over to Arcade with that stupid smile, expecting to be praised was a bad sign. Arcade picked his way around the mostly dismembered bodies decorating the room towards the Courier. About a foot from where he sat against the wall, Arcade crouched before the Courier.

“Why can’t things ever be easy with you?” Arcade muttered under his breath, forgetting exactly how sharp the Courier’s hearing was.

The Courier stopped his cursing and attempts to pick bits of shrapnel from his abdomen to glare at Arcade. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t throw a grenade. I just shot some people.” Then he let out a sharp whine. “Aaaarcaaaaade, help meeee.”

Sighing, Arcade kneeled beside the Courier and shoved his hand out of the way. “Hold your Pip-Boy up so I can see.”

The Courier stuck his lip out in a pout. “I can’t.”

Arcade delivered him a flat look. “You can’t”

As if embarrassed, the Courier glanced away. “My arm won’t move.”

Arcade looked from the bloodied knuckles on his working hand, to the speckling of superficial cuts on his abdomen and slice on the cheek, to the combat knife stabbed straight to the hilt where his arm met his shoulder.

“You didn’t think to mention that first.”

“How was I supposed to know, Arcade? I’m not a doctor,” he sighed heavily as if Arcade was struggling with the concept. “ _You’re_ the doctor.”

Knowing better than to argue, Arcade just leveled him with a dead stare until the Courier returned to pouting and looked away.

“Here, I’m going to give you some Med-X.”

“That sounds like a great idea.”

“For the pain, not to get high.”

“Why can’t it be both?”

=

Even among Caesar’s Legion, people feared Vulpes Inculta. The most notorious spy, head of the Frumentarii, cruel and cunning, Vulpes proved himself time and time again by not just meeting expectations, but exceeding them exponentially. As such, not many could oppose him. Not many would be bold enough to attempt it. Those who did were disposed of as ruthlessly as expected from one such as Vulpes Inculta.

However, one had not, much to Vulpes fury. Of course, Vulpes would eliminate him in time, but the longer it went on, the more Vulpes’s humiliation grew. While not anyone aside from him knew the extent of their grudge, Vulpes could barely sleep for the memories of the Courier. At night, Vulpes would seethe reliving each of their encounters.

The first, he should have known at the first. Vulpes should have killed him then. Standing in the town square of Nipton, crosses lining the road and buildings burning around them, Vulpes told him to spread word of what he witnessed.

The Courier, this strange man in a too big jacket and half unlaced boots, laughed bright and happy. Raising one hand, he formed the shape of a gun, pointed it at Vulpes, and said “Phew!” before laughing again. Sliding his hand back into his pocket, he smiled with all his teeth and then turned his back to Vulpes and his soldiers as if not threatened at all. He walked from Nipton, whistling a tune familiar from how often it played on New Vegas radio, only to stop at the foot of a cross. Without pausing to aim, he drew his gun and put a bullet through the head of a begging degenerate. Holstering once more, the Courier continued on his way, picking up the tune where he left off.

The second encounter, the Courier hadn’t recognized him. He accepted the Mark of Caesar without reverence, flicking it up and then snatching it from the air, only to toss it over his shoulder for the profligate behind him to catch. The profligate knew who Vulpes was, the Courier just didn’t seem to care.

“Sure thing, buddy,” he said, winking at Vulpes.

_Sure thing, buddy._

The third encounter, Vulpes realized his mistake.

Vulpes realized it before the first bullet was even fired. Vulpes realized it before the Courier even reached for his gun. But Vulpes only truly regretted it as the Courier stood over him, one hand holding him in place and the other smashing brass knuckles into his face over and over.

As much as he felt it, Vulpes heard when his orbital bone shattered. Vulpes choked on blood and loose teeth, struggled to breath until he couldn’t. It was amazing, how the pain splitting head consumed all else. The bullet in his leg where the Courier shot out his knee to prevent escape, the straight razor through his hand, buried into the ground so he couldn’t even retaliate, Vulpes could barely feel them for the split of his skull from the blow that took him down.

“Jesus Christ, Courier stop. He’s down. He’s dead. Let go.”

The hits stopped and the shadow cast over Vulpes vanished as the profligate dragged the Courier off. Even if he could have, Vulpes would not have moved.

“He called you a profligate.”

“You don’t even know what a profligate is.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t like _how_ he said it. Like he was better than you. He’s not better than you, Arcade.”

“I--Thanks. That’s fine. Let’s just go.”

Vulpes didn’t remember how he got back to the Fort, only waking up to the Auto-Doc reconstructing his face and Caesar's disappointment heavy over him. There had been a moment of weakness when Vulpes wished Caesar had just killed him. Caesar, in all his wisdom, allowed him to live. Not out of affection or mercy, any weakness of man. Caesar had shown before a fragile human bond did not make exception for failure. Caesar allowed Vulpes to live because even with all that occurred, Vulpes was still useful. Vulpes would be the one to kill the Courier. He would not rest until he had his revenge.

Here and now, it came to fruition. This was not luck, but divine will that delivered the Courier to him. Returning from a reconnaissance mission, Vulpes spotted the group of five degenerate addicts ambling along, too stoned to notice him or his unit of three Frumentarii. As in most instances, Vulpes chose to take the initiative. They began stalking the Fiends, waiting for the perfect opportunity to wipe them from the face of Caesar’s earth.

When the worn metal shack came into view, Vulpes knew the best tactic would be to strike before they could enter, but something niggled in the back of his mind causing his body to tense. He stalled, his men looking to him for orders. Then Vulpes saw him.

Barely visible in the darkness, a person scaled the metal beams up to the platform. Flipping himself over the banister, he landed without a sound and then disappeared around the corner. Instinctively, Vulpes knew who it was. Vulpes watched as the Fiends ambushed and murdered the two mercenaries guarding, losing one of their own in the process, but taking no notice. Then they kicked in the door, guns blazing.

How fortune smiled on the ambitious. The universe intervened to allow Vulpes his vengeance. A giddiness went through Vulpes at the opportunity before him, anticipation flying through his veins like electricity. He raised his hand and signaled for the unit to hold attention, before signing directions to each of them. Within the shack there would be a fight. Either the Fiends would die or the Courier would, the gang no longer friendly with the Courier after assassinating three of their most prominent members.

Vulpes would kill the winner.

They must only wait for the fight to end and for their guards to be lowered, then Vulpes would strike and bring the Courier’s head back to Caesar. They held position for nearly an hour before Vulpes judged enough time had passed. He signalled to begin closing in on the building.

Twenty yards to his right, a Frumentius’s head exploded.

=

“Told you I could do it.”

“That’s amazing.” Arcade didn’t admit it would have been an amazing shot even if he used his dominate hand. There was no point in inflating the Courier’s ego any further. 

“I’m amphibious.”

“...Ambidextrous.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Great, can you do it again?”

The Courier tossed a grin over his shoulder to where Arcade lie prone on the roof. “Baby, I can do it as many times as you want.”

“What did I tell you about calling me 'baby'?”

“Sweetheart.”

“No.”

“Hot stuff?”

“Can you just shut up and shoot some people?”

“Sure thing, hot stuff.”

Arcade rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond, knowing the Courier would be unable to resist arguing even in the face of peril. Of course, what the Courier considered peril verses what Arcade considered peril vastly differed. If Arcade were to pick an example at random, completely random, maybe it would be when the Courier failed to mention the four Frumentarii laying in wait outside the safehouse to _murder them_.

Then again, Arcade supposed when you were the Courier a few highly trained agents of Caesar really didn’t pose more of a threat than anyone else.

The Courier fired again. This time Arcade couldn’t be sure if the Courier hit his target, but by his mad laughter, Arcade assumed he had.

“How do you know they’re Frumentarii?”

With the second of their number dead, the two other figures in the dark began moving, one running away between boxcars into the distance and the other taking a zigzag path towards. Arcade fired and missed.

“The asshole with the dog on his head is running right at us,” the Courier explained, as he lined up his shot for the legion agent trying to put as much distance between them as possible. “Watch this, Arcade.”

“Vulpes Inculta?” Arcade’s laugh had no humor in it. “You killed him, remember?”

“Than it’s a different asshole with a dog hat,” the Courier offered. “Arcade, watch,” he whined.

“Why don't you shoot Vulpes, the guy running towards us?” Arcade suggested, doing his best to sound casual when not feeling very casual about the man racing their way, gun aimed at the roof. “You know, the immediate threat.”

“I’ll take care of him when he gets here,” the Courier scoffed. “Arcade, watch me shoot this guy before he's too far.”

Grabbing at any idea to stop the rapid fire and reloading of the marksman carbine punching holes through the shack and getting closer and closer to where they lie, Arcade took the easy route and appealed to the Courier's ego. "Too far or you just can't do it? If you really are that good you'd prove it and let him run while you took out Vulpes first."

The Courier let out noise of frustration and before Arcade could make another appeal, the Courier turned his gun to the side, firing under his arm and nailing Vulpes in the stomach. Vulpes pitched forward, the force of the bullet entering him throwing off his center of gravity. He hit the ground, knocking the gun from his hands and momentum sending him rolling.

"Okay, now watch," the Courier demanded.

"Go for it." Arcade did not bother hiding the relief in his voice. The Courier wouldn't notice anyway, too focused if not just too oblivious.

In the darkness, seemingly endless yards out, it should have been an impossible shot with a 5.56 mm pistol, no matter the modifications done to it. If it had been anyone else, Arcade would have been sure they would miss. But it was the Courier and if anyone could do the impossible, it'd be him. The Courier's entire existence consisted of doing the impossible. Shot in the head, buried alive, inconceivable odds, none of it mattered to the Courier. He seemed to exist in a reality of his own, changing the rules of theirs purely by force of will.

Even knowing all this Arcade still couldn't help, but be in awe when the fleeing Frumentarius went down. 

Rolling onto his back and then sitting up, the smirk the Courier gave Arcade screamed of self-satisfaction. "I can do anything."

"I think I might believe you." With danger passed, Arcade couldn't help giving a half smile back. Pushing himself upright too, Arcade looked around at the death dealt. When his eyes fell to the place where he was certain Vulpes should be, his heart seized. "Uh, Courier, about Vulpes."

The Courier didn't look up from fiddling with That Gun until he finished reloading it. "What about him?" Hopping up, the Courier skidded to the edge of the roof. "Told you I'd take care of him when he gets here. He crawled over like a second ago, chill." Taking a step back, the Courier dropped off the roof without looking where he fell.

Arcade heard the faint sound of him landing on the balcony, before sighing and following, albeit slower and much more carefully. By the time he descended the stairs, the Courier already stood before Vulpes, poking his slumped form with his boot.

The Courier laughed in delight. “Look at this fuck, Arcade. He’s still alive. Fuck, it seems shitty to kill him after he worked so hard to stay alive.”

“If you do not kill me now, I will hunt you down like the dog you are,” Vulpes hissed, blood leaking between his teeth, “cut your throat and watch you drown in your own blood.

The Courier cocked his head back, smile shifting from open and happy to something more crooked, something like a smirk. Through half closed eyes, still hazy with the effects of Med-X, the Courier studied Vulpes struggling to stay upright. One bloody hand slipped on the scaffolding and the other clutched his abdomen where the Courier shot him.

“You still think you can kill me?” the Courier murmured.

Arcade stiffened at the Courier’s low tone, having heard it so many times before, moments before the Courier started a fight or something worse. Before Arcade could begin to contemplate how to stop it, the Courier fired three times. Vulpes's scream spoke more of rage than pain as he collapsed to the ground, but even the head of the Frumentarii wasn’t bulletproof. One bullet shattered the same knee the Courier shot Vulpes the first time. The second bullet shot clean through his right bicep. The third bullet buried itself into the ground, a splatter of blood from tearing through Vulpes’s ear surrounding it.

“Who am I to stop you from trying?” the Courier asked, waving That Gun about as he shrugged, and then began reloading, fingers too quick to follow. “If you can kill me, kill me.”

"You're the person he's trying to kill," Arcade pointed out. If any death was justifiable it was definitely Vulpes Inculta. "You actually would be the person with the right to stop him."

The Courier scrunched up his nose at what Arcade said, as if finding it distasteful and then shrugged. Strolling over to where Vulpes slumped against the rusted beams, the Courier crouched down. Pressing the barrel of his gun under Vulpes’s chin, the Courier tipped his head one way and then the other, inspecting the damage he did. Blood poured down the side of Vulpes’s neck from the hole where his ear once was, now blown to pieces. The Courier hummed in contemplation, leaning within inches of Vulpes’s face.

“If you don’t think you can kill me, fucking bleed out right here. I don’t give a shit.” The Courier raised the gun farther, forcing Vulpes head back and leaned in to touch his forehead to Vulpes’s. “Or if you ask pretty pretty please you can come with Arcade and me. We’d love to take you home with us.”

At first, Arcade stood there, rolling his eyes at the Courier's dramatics, but then he thought about it. For a second, Arcade thought he must have misheard, because the Courier couldn't possibly be offering to house the leader of Caesar's Frumentarii at the Lucky 38, the control center of his securitron army. Where his closest allies slept. Where _Boone_ was. As it dawned on him, Arcade stared, gaping, but before he could begin yelling his protest, Vulpes screamed his.

His severe face twisted into something beyond abhorrence. "Profilgates,” Vulpes shrieked, jerking forward in an attempt to slam his head into the Courier's.

Of course, the Courier eased back with effortless grace as Vulpes collapsed to the side, body quaking with pain. The Courier frowned and glanced to Arcade for clarification. 

“That would be a ‘no.’”

The Courier smiled at Arcade before looking back to Vulpes.

“If you change your mind, here’s my card.” The Courier flicked his fingers like a show magician, a small card appearing between them as if from thin air. With a wink, the Courier tucked the black matte card into Vulpes Inculta’s armor and then pat his cheek, leaving bloody fingerprints on white skin.

Vulpes snarled and lurched forward once more. Arcade had no doubt he would have snapped his teeth at the Courier’s hand if not for his pride. The Courier laughed, unthreatened by the intensity of hatred burning in Vulpes’s eyes, or more likely oblivious to it. He popped up, straightening his tattered jacket and rolling his injured shoulder as if working out a kink instead of recovering from a stab wound.

“You have business cards now.” Arcade did not ask.

Immediately, the Courier brightened up. “Yeah! Mikey made them for me!

“Michael Angelo?”

The Courier rolled his eyes. “How many other Michael’s do we know, Arcade?”

“We? I know at least three.”

“Okay, how many do I know?”

Arcade sighed. “One.”

“One,” the Courier confirmed, pointing a business card at Arcade. “Mikey.”

Morbidly curious, Arcade accepted the card. Pleased in his interest, the Courier grinned and then bumped shoulders with him as he walked by. Acade furrowed his brow and struggled to read the card in the night as he followed. With only the moonlight to go by, it took Arcade a moment to realize, yes, the only the thing on the little piece of black card stock was inlaid gold script that read “Courier 6.” Still, he flipped it twice to be sure. 

“This just says ‘Courier 6’.”

In front of him, the Courier sighed, long and exaggerated. Arcade didn’t need to see the Courier’s face to know he rolled his eyes.

“Shouldn’t it, I don’t know, have contact information of some sort? An explanation? Anything?”

“Everyone already knows who I am and where I am and what I am. Why would I need to put that on the card?”

“Than why do you have a business card at all?”

“Tommy Torini has business cards. I wanted business cards.“

“Yeah, okay, but Tommy Torini is a businessman who does business.”

“Shut up, Arcade. You wouldn’t understand. You’re not cool enough.”

Despite the months between the time they parted and now, the Courier drew Arcade back to where he had been before. As if he never left, Arcade fell right back into step, patching him up and bickering along the way.

Together they walked into the Mojave, just as before, the Courier and his doctor. If not for Vulpes’s anguished howl, Arcade might have forgotten the carnage behind them.


End file.
